Edge of Dawn (41 page)

“Mosi, baby, what are you doing here? Oh, God, I thought you were safe.”

“The bad men were waiting. There was fighting—”

Anxiety stopped his breath. “Damon? Is Damon all right?”

“I don't know. He told me to run. I got between their legs, they couldn't catch me, and I got in a pipe. They couldn't fit and I got away.”

“Why did you come here?”

“Where else could I go?” she said simply, and the answer had tears stinging his eyes.

Richard blinked them away and glanced back over his shoulder at Titchen and his monster, then past him to the laboring Grenier. For a brief instant, Richard's and Grenier's eyes met. The former preacher looked away. Had that been regret? Grief? Richard wasn't sure. It didn't matter. There was so little time left.

“Come on. Up. We're going up,” Richard said.

“My pony?”

“They won't hurt him.” Richard hoped he was right. The child was barely holding hysterics at bay. If she saw this horse die … “They're after us.”

The moment the words were uttered, he realized that probably hadn't been the most comforting thing he could say, but maybe it was the right thing. The decision, the action, he had been trying to avoid now seemed inevitable. But could he do it?

Grabbing Kenntnis by the shoulder, Richard propelled him toward a set of stairs. He put Mosi in front of him. “Keep Mr. Kenntnis … the Sky Warrior moving, okay?” She gave a tense nod and laid her hands against the small of Kenntnis's back and started shoving. They climbed onto the first set of lower battlements. A quarter way around the circle was another set of stairs heading up to the next level. Richard pushed them all into a run toward those stairs. The arrival of the men and the creature in the courtyard was too much for the horse. It snorted in terror and bolted through a gate.

“Richard, it really is time to call it quits.” Titchen was calling from the center of the courtyard, head craned back looking up at them. “Just give us the child and Mr. Kenntnis. We'll deal gently with them, and we'll make it quick for you. You have my word on it.”

Richard drove them up the next set of stairs. “That's very kind of you, Mr. Titchen, but I'm going to decline.”

The Old One's tentacles boiled up out of the courtyard, reaching for them. Titchen grated out something in a language Richard had heard only a couple of times before, out of Rhiana, Grenier, and Cross. It was guttural, harsh, and utterly inhuman; it also sounded oddly pleading. The oily black tentacles retreated to roil and writhe in the bowl of the courtyard. The guards, up to their waists in the darkness, were shaking, darting wild-eyed glances at the horror all around them.

The trio had reached the uppermost wall. Two feet wide, and no railing, but a person could boost himself up and almost circle the entire fortress on the top of the walls. Richard lifted Mosi onto the wall. She looked down and swayed for an instant. He caught the back of her shirt.

“Don't look down,” he ordered. He climbed up and stretched out a hand to Kenntnis. The big man joined them on the narrow walkway.

“Where are we going?” Mosi asked.

“There.” He pointed at the part of the wall that was at the tallest edge of the cliff.

They moved toward it, their pace a careful shuffle. Heights had never bothered Richard, perhaps because of years of gymnastics and the times he'd climbed masts on sailboats. Mosi was doing well, but Richard kept a hand on her shoulder as a precaution. From this highest vantage point, Ankara was spread out before them. He gazed out on the slender minaret of a mosque and the red-tiled roofs of the Old City, many topped with satellite dishes. In the city center, skyscrapers were wreathed in smoke, and on a distant sister cliff was another fortress with gleaming cell towers planted around it like silver spears. An odd juxtaposition of ancient technology and modern technology, and below them, writhing and billowing, the antithesis of human creativity and invention—an avatar of raw passion untempered by reason. On the hills across the bowl valley that held Ankara, a shantytown burned. Screams ripped the smoky air as people huddled in the houses below reacted to the presence of the Old One.

Richard was scared, regretting bad decisions he'd made, wishing he could see Pamela and Amelia and Joseph and Jeannette and Sam and Damon, especially Damon, one last time, but the Old One's mind-numbing horror couldn't touch him or Mosi because they were paladins, empty of all magic, beyond its power to beguile or terrorize. It could not freeze him or keep him from his final task.

Titchen started up the stairs. The creature squeezed and compressed itself into a shape vaguely reminiscent of a human form if a human body were made of squirming snakes. Deep within the dark tendrils there were hints of mucus-filled eyes, thousands of them. Was it one creature or a multitude of small ones? Did it matter? It and its human servant were coming.

Kenntnis reached the most distant point of the fort and stopped, blocked by a stone wall. They stood in a line, Richard, Mosi, and Kenntnis, and looked down at a sheer thousand-foot drop to the valley floor. On the other side, a hundred-foot fall to the paving stones of the courtyard, visible again. Only the long fall would be a guarantee of death. Once again, Richard's and Grenier's eyes met. The fat man's mouth worked, and then he called, “Richard, don't.”

Richard wrapped his arms around Mosi, took a breath. She tensed in his arms as she realized what he was contemplating.

Titchen also seemed to realize Richard's intention. He stopped his advance and held out his hands in a placating manner. “Okay, okay, let's all just stop a minute. No need for this. And really, you're going to kill that little girl? Everything I've heard tells me you're not that kind of man.”

Mosi looked up at him with an expression that held fear and doubt. “
Na sha dii
?”

The betrayal in her voice broke his resolve.
Protector. You promised to be her protector.
Richard slumped. “I'm sorry, Mosi, I failed you.”

“Don't give me to them!”

“I can't hurt you either.”

“Use the sword. Make everything all right!” Tears blurred the words.

Never had he felt more useless. An utter failure. He forced words past the lump in his throat. “I can't, baby, I lost the sword.”

She stared at him in confusion and said, “The Sky Warrior has it.”

He gaped at her, and then shadows came writhing out of a carved face on the mountain side of the wall, grasping for them. Mosi screamed. Richard spun and began feverishly patting down Kenntnis.

“No! Inside!” Mosi slipped past him and looked up into Kenntnis's eyes. “
Y
á
Ahiga,
it is time to fight.”

She drove her hand into his torso. There was that flash of light similar to what had happened in Pamukkale. The shadows shied back. Mosi was holding the hilt. Richard was behind her and knew they were out of time. Wrapping his arms around her, he laid his hands over hers, and they drew the sword together. The musical chord was deafening, and the overtones vibrated in his chest. Richard pulled the sword from her grasp and spun to face the Old One. His heel caught on the rough surface of the wall, and he lost his balance. Arms pinwheeling, he tried to keep himself from going over the edge. Mosi shrieked, grabbed his coat, and steadied him. The shadows were retreating. Richard leaped after them, lunged, and fell to one knee as he stretched as far as he could reach. The tip of the sword sheared through a tendril.

A monstrous, discordant sound, part scream, part wet bubbling, echoed off the stone walls, and the infernal stink that seemed to always accompany the death of an Old One had Richard gagging, his eyes streaming. Titchen began to retreat, then turned and ran along the wall. Richard ran after him. He yelled back over his shoulder, “Mosi, you and Kenntnis find some cover. Go! Go!”

Titchen looked back in panic, and his foot caught on the rough stone. He staggered but had no ally to pull him back. With a wail that became a glissando scream, he went off the wall. Unfortunately, as far as Richard was concerned, they were no longer at the highest point of the fortress. It was a mere sixty or so feet. Titchen crashed on the steps leading up to the fortress, his body rolling across a souvenir-covered rug. He lay, a crumpled form, surrounded by the unblinking blue eyes of the wards.

Grenier suddenly emerged from beneath the gate at a waddling run. He lumbered past Titchen and spared him not a glance. Rage exploded in Richard's chest, but he had armed men to worry about. Grenier's turn was coming.

Dropping to one knee, Richard sheathed the sword and jammed the hilt into his pocket. He then pulled out a flash-bang grenade, removed the pin, and tossed it down among the milling guards. Covering his ears, he looked away so as not to be blinded. The grenade went off with a chest-pounding bang. There were screams from the guards. Richard pulled the Browning from his shoulder rig as a bullet skipped and whined off the stone near him.

He aimed and double-tapped at the guard with the drawn gun. The roar of the pistol damped whatever hearing he had left, but he was pleased to see the bullets take the man in the chest. The guard collapsed.

“Throw down your weapons,” Richard yelled, and wondered if the remaining men could even hear him. Certainly the four who were crawling feebly across the flagstone were deafened.

Five down, three to go,
he thought. Richard risked a glance. Mosi had gotten herself and Kenntnis down a level and were huddled in one of the small rooms out of the line of fire. Richard was exposed on the battlement, but he also held the high ground. It was literally like shooting targets in a barrel as he drew down on another guard, who seemed to be reaching for his sidearm. His aim was a bit off on this one, and it took the man in the low belly rather than the chest. The final two guards threw down their weapons and put their hands behind their heads.

The timing was going to be tight, but Richard needed to incapacitate the prisoners, and handcuffs were not an option. Keeping his pistol leveled on the guards, Richard pulled the hilt out of his pocket and leaped down the steps. He got within a blade's length of the men, dropped the pistol, and drew the sword.

One of the men tried to be a hero, lunged for Richard, and managed to run himself onto the point of the sword. It wasn't a deep wound, and the touch of the sword had its usual effect of sending him into violent convulsions. Richard spun and slapped the flat of the blade against the only guard still standing. He went down. Then for good measure Richard touched the men still trying to recover from the flash-bang. He moved to the men he had wounded and discovered that one man was dead.
Thirty-two.
The man with the belly wound would need a doctor and soon if he wasn't going to be number thirty-three. Richard touched him with the sword, swept up his pistol, and headed for the gate through which Grenier had fled.

Richard imagined the feel as his fist buried itself in that pendulous belly, planned the blow to a jowled cheek, pictured teeth breaking and blood pouring over the multiple chins. Envisioned Grenier prostrate on the cobbles while he kicked the living shit out of him. Each image sent his rage spiraling higher. He was through the gate and drew level with Titchen's broken body. The man was moaning, piteous, animal-like sounds of suffering. Richard contemptuously drew the edge of the sword across Titchen's chest, cutting through material and leaving a shallow, bloody line across his skin. The convulsions took him, and Titchen screamed in agony.

The sound was like a blow, chilling Richard, and his rage faded to bitter ash. Who was he to inflict such pain? What was he becoming? Then he remembered the child. Huddled, frightened, and now—because of Richard's single-minded fury—abandoned. Grenier didn't matter. Vengeance didn't matter. Mosi mattered.

Richard turned, ran back through the gate and into the fortress. Mosi was standing on the battlement, tears staining her face as she stared desperately toward the gate. When she saw Richard, she covered her face with her hands, the slender body shaking. He raced up the stairs, sheathed the sword, and gathered her into his arms. They sank down onto the stone walkway.

She battered at his chest with a fist. “I thought you had left me!”

“Never, Mosi, never.”

He pulled her into his lap and rocked her gently while her tears soaked his shirt and her wails echoed off the walls. Kenntnis emerged from the small alcove and loomed over them, staring down with an almost puzzled expression.

The sobs began to die, then Mosi once again slammed a fist against Richard's chest. She lifted her head out of his shoulder and glared at him.

“Why didn't you tell me about the sword? How it was gone.”

“I didn't want to worry you.”

“If you had, we'd have had the sword back waaay sooner. You were dumb!”

“Yes, I probably was, but why didn't you tell me when the sword appeared and dove into Mr. Kenntnis's body?”

“'Cause you didn't say anything and I thought it was something
you
had done and wanted to keep it secret since everybody was so mad.”

Richard sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “That's fair. I guess we need to talk to each other more.”

“Okay. And you can't leave me ever again!” she ordered fiercely.

He didn't bother with words. He just hugged her close. That was how the authorities found them.

 

Chapter

TWENTY-FOUR

“W
HY
didn't you go after him? You could have caught him easily.” Weber's warm breath puffed against Richard's ear.

There was enough city glow that he could make out the older man's features as Richard lay in the circle of Weber's arms. He was pressed against Weber's right side since a bullet had grazed his left hip, gouging a deep channel almost down to the bone.